Choosing one trail race over another can be difficult, especially if you don’t know very much about them. Is this one easier or harder than the other? You can look at previous years’ results to see finish times. You can talk to people who have run it before. So much is subjective though; what’s challenging for one person is easy for another. We put together the race comparison chart below to give you some guidance in selecting which you may want to run this year or next.
For each Go Beyond Racing race, we list the distance, distance category (Ultra, Sub-Ultra, and Super-Ultra), elevation gain and loss, how many years the race has run, and give a technical rating, a difficulty rating, and let you know if it is a good beginner race for that distance. It’s a simple race comparison, but we believe helpful.
The Technicality rating is between one and five, with one being not very technical and five being our most technical race. A one would be a pretty level trail without any or very few roots or rocks and/or isn’t off-camber much. A five is the kind of trail (or not even a trail) that has a lot going on, where you have to keep your eyes on your feet or you’re going to bite it. If you want to take in a view, you probably need to stop or slow down. The number doesn’t represent the entire trail, but enough of it to be aware. For example, Volcanic 50K is a five because of the lava/boulder fields you have to cross as well as the gritty ravines you climb in and out of. But there are some really glorious, single-track sections of this race where you are just floating across the terrain.
The same scale is used for the Difficulty rating. Difficulty, here, refers to how hard the race is overall and encapsulates the distance, elevation, trail conditions, as well as duration. We know our courses and events very well and this is how we’d rate and compare them. This is very much our opinion. For instance, we gave Bristow 24/12/6 Hour Run a two difficulty. This course is about as easy as you could get from a technical terrain and elevation stance, but, running for 24 hours (or even 12 or 6) straight, in a 1.05-mile loop is not very easy. We could be wrong, but no one has ever finished any of our races and said “that was easy!”, so keep that in mind when considering what a one means compared to a two, or even three.
The Beginner Friendly column refers to that distance specifically, and notes whether a race is a good one for someone to take on for their first time, at that distance. So even though a 200-miler isn’t a good idea for a brand-new trail runner, the Oregon 200 is a great race for someone looking to run their first 200. This isn’t to say that someone couldn’t run the Wy’east Wonder 50K as their first ultra since we said its not beginner friendly. You could and people do. We are just saying it isn’t a beginner 50K like Stumptown Trail Runs or Mt Hood Trail Runs 50Ks.
Again, much of this is subjective so you may have a completely different take on a race after running it yourself. For those who have raced any of these, what do you think? Would you change anything? Or has this gotten you stoked to sign up and you want to register for your first?